14 November, 2015

SW:TOR, Knights of the Fallen Empire, Chapter III Outlander

By
Kyle Shimmin

Ravanor falls from one nightmare into another in this
chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire, but at least he’s not alone, this
adventure is just getting started.

Chapter III Outlander

It’s not the refined visage of Valkorian that greeted
Ravanor’s thawing eyes, but the familiar and far more welcoming face of Lana
Beniko, long-time ally, lover, and more recently the Minister of the newly
formed Sith Intelligence. To counteract the carbon poisoning Lana shot Ravanor
with a terrifyingly large hypodermic, making the already unpleasant procedure all
the more painful. As his vision returned Ravanor noted a T7 astromech droid
working at a wall terminal behind Lana.

An aside, Lana has undergone a minor but certainly
noticeable redesign, her once severe features and awkward hair have both been
smoothed, it’s a welcome touch up; her rough spots were the result I suspect of
comparatively crude rendering, her original model looked lower quality than
most others. Additionally, the astromech is the very same T7-01 that
accompanies the Jedi Knight throughout their class story.

Their reunion was cut painfully brief, a trio of merciless
white Skytroopers charged the vault that held Ravanor, one of Arcann’s many
prisoners by the looks of it. As Ravanor and Lana blasted their way through
security, she revealed that they aren’t in a prison at all, rather a storage
vault containing Arcann’s most prized ‘possessions’.

The pair stopped at a sealed security checkpoint and Lana
checked in with the rest of her extraction team, the pilot Koth Vortena was
introduced. His ship hangs conspicuously from the side of a building somewhere
in the city beyond. Then they noticed a figure on one of the security camera
feeds; a hooded woman and a golden armoured soldier in the very vault they just
fled. The woman was Vaylin, daughter of the late Emperor Valkorion, irritated
by the Knight’s manner Vaylin snapped the man’s neck with a flick of her wrist.
Resolved, Lana gathered her Force powers and held the security doors open long
enough for them to dive through, putting one more bulkhead between them and the
unhinged Force-user Vaylin.

Lana led Ravanor through a Zakuulan tower; furnished white
and crisp, the civilian décor possessed an air of elegance that neither the
warmer Republic, nor more oppressive Imperial architecture could hope to match.
All the while Vaylin was in close pursuit, rather than hold the security door
open like Lana did, she blasted it aside with apparent ease.

Meanwhile Koth was ousted from his hidden perch, by a wing
of the Eternal Fleet’s circular starfighters, the fight passed just in front of
the glass elevator Lana and Ravanor took down from of the tower.

Ravanor’s flight saw them battle through a walker-led ambush
on a sky-bridge, lush with vegetation, straight into the heart of a Skytooper
manufacturing plant, home of course to various models of Skytroopers. Vaylin,
ruthless in her pursuit ripped the very infrastructure of the city apart, she
tore pieces from a reactor tower and launched them across skyline at Ravanor
with little immediate effect.

The gameplay at this point took on a tangible sense of
urgency, in no small part to the unabated use of epic Star Wars music. The
combat remained far easier and faster than what would be considered normal for
the game at this high level, but that only made it more enjoyable for me. The
rush I felt throughout this chapter was not something I have experienced in a
long, long time in The Old Republic, and while action games can create that same
rush on a dime, few feel as meaningful as this. I’ve followed Ravanor on and
off for almost four years, I don’t have exact numbers but I feel confident
saying I’ve never put more time into any other role-playing game character, that
investment makes the events of this expansion feel all the more consequential.

They cleared the droid factory only to face with an even
greater obstacle; the sun machine. The reactor, the burning sun-like structure
that Vaylin ripped chunks off to throw at Ravanor, has naturally destabilised.
Ravanor now has two choices; Koth implored him to power down the reactor, thus
saving the lives of thousands who would be caught in the imminent blast, but
Lana saw the impending disaster for it really was, an opportunity. It wasn’t a
difficult choice, rather than intervening the pair continued towards their pick
up coordinates, deciding to use the decaying reactor as a form of cover, to
keep a step ahead of the Eternal Empire.

Koth’s situation had degenerated further; his ship now laid a
smoking wreck and cloaked security agents rushed him from all sides, calling
Lana he asked they hold on for just three more minutes. On another set of the
landing platforms, Ravanor and Lana find their exit impeded by a pair of Knights
of Zakuul; Force-users with no alignment to either the Light or Dark side. They
accused Ravanor of having killed their immortal Emperor Valkorion, Ravanor
pointed out the poorly constructed logic of that accusation, but the
confrontation was inevitable.

The Knights were of course no match for two battle-hardened
veterans of the Great Galactic War. The larger, bulkier Knight named Novo leapt
to safety, calling for his smaller partner Tanek to do the same, but Lana
gripped him in the Force, and prepared to cleave the life from his helpless
form. Ravanor advised against it; they were clearly no real threat, Lana
disapproved but allowed the bested Knight to flee with his companion. Despite
the victory, the fight with the Knights had slowed them and allowed Vaylin to
finally catch up.

Lana resigned herself to battle once more, however Koth had
different ideas. Piloting a stolen Zakuulan shuttle, he rose to hang above the
platform and opened fire with twin laser cannons. The screaming salvo of laser
fire obliterated Vaylin’s Skytrooper backup and forced her onto the defensive,
briefly, using the Force she wielded a sheet of metal flooring as a shield.

Lana and Ravanor threw themselves aboard the commandeered
shuttle, curiously Ravanor was helped aboard by a somewhat familiar assassin
droid, clearly a HK model. Vaylin doesn’t remain sheltered for long, as Koth
gunned for an escape, she launched the scrap of metal she had used as cover at
the shuttle, damaging its engines. On the ground Zakuulan defence turrets
powered up and began to track the shuttle, but the astromech T7-01, still in
the city was able to prevent them from firing at the wounded craft.

Back on the landing platforms, Vaylin stood gazing after her
retreating enemy, a contingent of Knights formed up at attention, including
Novo and Tanek. She addressed them but rather than simply reprimanding them for
their failure, she choked the life from Tanek in front of his fellow warriors.

Aboard the shuttle Lana and Koth revealled that Ravanor had
been frozen for five years.